Google’s Disability Alliance
The Disability Alliance (DA), is our Employee Resource Group (ERG) for Google (and Alphabet) employees who care about disabilities, learning differences, special needs, and neurodiversity, for themselves or a child, relative, or friend. It was founded by Googlers in 2012, and is a community where employees can advocate, build awareness, and share advice around disability topics, with the goal of creating innovative and inclusive teams, products, and workplaces. It also serves as a source of input as Google designs its products, workspaces, and culture. The DA has chapters in 18 countries and thousands of members, as well as many topic-specific groups on topics like chronic health conditions, caregivers and their needs, parents of children with disabilities, wheelchair users, and others.
The DA helps Google improve how it addresses disability inclusion by engaging in awareness activities at all levels of the company. For example, each year the DA partners with the Central Accessibility team to plan a global Accessibility & Disability Inclusion Week, to educate, inspire, and engage employees, and raise awareness for the more than one billion individuals in the world with some form of disability. In 2019 over 12,000 Googlers engaged in over 250 activities in 44 offices, including product demos, tech talks, discussion panels, social events, and awareness activities.
In 2020, the Disability Alliance was recognized as ERG/BRG of the Year by Disability:IN. We are very grateful for everything the DA does to help Google build accessible products and an inclusive workplace for all.